Photography

It's bad analysis but also most likely outcome. I've been through this a bunch of times, and I was way more buttoned up about rights management than OP. Unless you're going to actually file a lawsuit, the most likely outcome is that they will feel bad and take them down and stop responding.

The above is likely what happened. Yes, they transferred a right they didn't have. But most people are pretty ignorant. Especially with small market local stuff.

I've done the fight, I've sent C&Ds, I've sent demand letters. My financial outcome from that is negative. Unless this is a major outlet it's not worth it. And even then, FOX basically told me to fuck off because they have more lawyers.

If I were OP, I would try to flip this into a positive and educate the paper and try to say "hey, going forward if you'd like this type of coverage I'll happily freelance for you. My rates are ____."

Depending on country and legal system, the photographer may also have moral rights which cover the right to be credited for their work.

I know we all want to be aggrieved copyright lawyers here. You are right, the band failed his contract because they didn’t enforce the credit.

But my analysis is reality.

OP let the band use his pics for promotion, naively thinking that they would have full control of every use and he would get credit. They don’t have full control. They aren’t the end user. They hand out the pics for promotion and have no control over how or if they are published. The newspaper receives a massive number of hand out pics. They accept them because it is free and convenient. Everyone understands that publishing them is helpful for the person who submitted them. Somebody there may care about trying to give credit. Maybe nobody does. Even if they want to, there are a lot of potential breakdowns.

Probably there is a written policy that by submitting a handout photo you attest that you have full rights and are granting full rights to the paper without credit.

OP can go after the band and burn that bridge. Op can invoice the paper and that will burn bridges with the paper and the band. Or OP can understand the nature of handout photos.

Where do I get my opinion? Some comes from being a photographer who does promotional photos and file photos that should be credited but several times a week are not. Most of it comes from being the guy who received, edited and published the handout photos at several major daily newspapers.